Maintaining Confidentiality at UCT

A new page has been added to our site on Confidentiality that provides the UCT community insight into the "why" and "how" of maintaining confidentiality in a research environment. One of the primary drivers from a patenting perspective is the requirement for "absolute novelty" in order to be granted patent protection, meaning that there can have been no publication ahead of filing a provisional patent application. Once the provisional patent has been filed, one can go ahead and publish.

This has become more important for UCT researchers since the introduction of the IPR Act. In terms of the IPR Act researchers need to screen their work for protectable IP prior to publication and to alert RCIPS to any potentially protectable IP within 90 days of its discovery. Read more about Invention Disclosure here.